


We Spent Two Years Together, I Thought I Made Her Better.

by Zyzzyva



Series: And the universe said, "You have played the game well." [DSMP Fics] [9]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Manifold-centric, Panic Attacks, brief major character death, he died but it's ok :), hop in bitch let's get you some healing, liberal use of hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zyzzyva/pseuds/Zyzzyva
Summary: 'He’s not sure when it changed into “kill him.” He’s not sure when it turned from a want to yell, to hit, to wanting to destroy him with nukes, but the anger is fire deep in his chest, the only thing he can feel, and he wants it to continue burning.Niki says she doesn’t want Jack to get hurt.“It’s not like I can get more dead,” he sneers. He doesn’t want to hurt her. He wants to hurt everyone.'
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy & Jack Manifold, Jack Manifold & Niki | Nihachu, Jack Manifold & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Jack Manifold & TommyInnit
Series: And the universe said, "You have played the game well." [DSMP Fics] [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207772
Comments: 12
Kudos: 112





	We Spent Two Years Together, I Thought I Made Her Better.

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve really been looking into jack's character lately & i’m super enamored w/ it.
> 
> title from welcome to castle irwell by crywank :)
> 
> tws: panic attack, death, violence.

Jack Manifold loses his last life on December sixteenth, and he crawls out of hell on the same day.

He has never stood down. He’s a stubborn bastard and he knows that, and he knows that standing against fucking _Technoblade_ is a bad idea, and he doesn’t care, because he won’t let him destroy his home.

Technoblade looks him in the eye, laughs in his face, and drives an axe down the center of his skull.

* * *

He doesn’t quite register dying, doesn’t quite register the feeling of falling to the ground.

He does register _pain_. He does register overwhelming _panic._ He comes to laying on the ground, blood stuck to his scalp and in his eyes, rubble scratching his back.

He keens in pain, sits up slowly. He rubs his eyes, resting his head in his hands. He thinks, dimly, that everything seems dulled. Explosions and screams in the background, the feeling of his hands on his face, the chill in the air. He can hardly feel any of it. He edges himself behind a large piece of rubble, safe from the conflict for now.

Panic courses through his veins. What happened?

He grasps at his arms, curling in on himself. Everything feels wrong. Everything feels _wrong._

His breath quickens as he grows hysterical. Tears start to fall as he hiccups, and as they trickle down his face he can barely even feel them.

And then it _stops._

His hand flies to his throat. He tries to start breathing again, but as the seconds pass he finds he doesn’t even _need_ it.

Oh god, he’s _dead._ He’s really fucking dead. Is he a ghost?

“Oh god,” he chokes, curling in even further into himself.

“Hello?” someone else’s voice calls. He doesn’t bother sitting up.

“Jack?” the voice continues, then, “Oh _fuck_ , Jack!”

Someone touches his arm, and he craves the contact. He can still hardly feel it, but he leans into it, arms wrapping around him and holding him so tight it would probably hurt, before.

“I’m so glad you’re ok,” they whisper. Who is it? Whose voice is that?

“Niki.” His voice sounds raspy, contaminated from smoke and TNT and death.

“Yes, yes, I’m here,” she chokes, and he can tell, faintly, that she’s crying. “You’re ok.”

He nods into her shoulder. He wants it to be true, but it can’t be. He can barely hear her over the ringing in his ears.

“I thought you were dead, I’ve been looking for you. How long have you been back here? Didn’t you hear me calling for you?”

He almost snorts. What can he say?

Her hand moves from his shoulders, cupping around the back of his head. She massages a thumb over the nape of his neck where she used to when he got upset. Her thumb brushes over dried blood and he can feel it flake off.

Her hand stills. “Jack, you’re so cold. Are you ok?”

He coughs. “I’m sorry, Niki.”

He pulls back, looks her in the face. Her eyes are sad.

“Jack, please tell me what happened. What’s going on?”

“I died,” he breathes. A shiver runs through him as the realization hits him like a ton of bricks. Oh god, he fucking _died._ He grasps for purchase on her arms, grounding himself as best he can. She grips him back.

A combination of confusion and horror fills her face. “You didn’t have any lives left, how…”

He shakes his head. A hysterical laugh bubbles from his chest. “I don’t fucking know, Niki, I don’t fucking know.”

She cups his face then pulls him into a tight hug. “You’re gonna be ok, Jack. We’re gonna be ok.”

* * *

It’s a hard thing, adjusting to death.

For one, he’s constantly cold. Not only his temperature, but also his skin. It’s cold, clammy like a corpse. Niki says it feels weird, but he can’t exactly tell. He piles on layers, spends as much time as he can in front of the fire trying to warm the constant chill in his core, but it doesn’t work.

He doesn’t breathe anymore. Occasionally he’ll hiccup or gasp, as if his brain is trying to kickstart his body again, and he’ll sit in silence for a few minutes while nothing but pure _panic_ floods his brain, telling him something is deeply wrong. The first time it happens, Tubbo slams on his back thinking he’d choked, and Jack devolves into a vicious panic attack before Tubbo even has a chance to realize.

He doesn’t need to eat, and he physically can’t sleep. He didn’t realize how much people slept, before, and now he finds himself sitting on the Snowchester porch in the early morning and realizing how _lonely_ the world is.

He can hardly feel much of anything, and he can hear even less. His vision’s gone a bit fuzzy, too. It feels like his senses have started closing in on himself, and it’s _terrifying._

The others have adapted, and he’s thankful. If Niki comes up behind him, she’ll grab his arm _hard_ , and Tubbo will usually pinch him or slap the back of his head so he knows he’s there.

He’s decided not to tell Tubbo. The kid doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t need to know, long as Jack doesn’t start falling apart like some sort of zombie. He’s pretty sure Tubbo just thinks he’s traumatized, or that he’s lost some of his hearing from explosions like Tubbo has.

And, well, he’s not exactly wrong.

* * *

It’s Niki who starts it. They’re sitting around the fireplace, Jack as close as he can get to try to get rid of the chill, and she says,

“You know, when you think about it, it’s all kind of Tommy's fault.”

Resentment has been festering since Tommy killed him, so he’s not exactly shocked, just curious. “What d’you mean?”

“He’s caused so much trouble on the server, and now he’s just gotten away with it.” Niki sounds angry, and when she sounds angry it’s never good, so he turns to look her in the eye. She’s practically shaking. “He needs to suffer for it like we did.”

When he was alive, he woke up from nightmares almost every night of drowning in lava, of burning while Tommy laughed and sneered and _laughed_ , and now it only solidifies. He hates him.

It’s Tommy's fault he’s dead. If Tommy hadn’t killed him, he wouldn’t be dead now.

Niki stumbles to her feet and falls to her knees in front of him, pulling him into a desperate hug.

He’s not sure if he can cry anymore, but the feeling’s there all the time as he clings to Niki, grasping tightly to her shirt, and she pulls his head to her shoulder, curls around him protectively.  
They stay there for a long time. Every once in a while, Niki will murmur an assurance. After long enough the words mutate, transform into something nasty, slimy.

“He’ll pay for this.”

* * *

The nukes are divisive. Jack doesn’t want Tubbo to get hurt. Niki doesn’t want Jack to get hurt. They both want Tommy to get hurt.

He’s not sure when it changed into “kill him.” He’s not sure when it turned from a want to yell, to hit, to wanting to destroy him with nukes, but the anger is fire deep in his chest, the only thing he can feel, and he wants it to continue burning.

Niki says she doesn’t want Jack to get hurt.

“It’s not like I can get more dead,” he sneers. He doesn’t want to hurt her. He wants to hurt everyone.

* * *

Tubbo can tell there’s something wrong. He can tell it in the way he rests his hand on Jack’s back, even when he can’t feel it, in the way he stays up late and gets up early to spend time with him.

He comes up behind him, early one morning, and wraps his arms around Jack’s chest. He buries his head in Jack’s back and squeezes him tight. Jack jumps at first, but soon relaxes into the hold.

He can’t hear Tubbo’s sobs, as quiet as they are, but he can almost feel the shaking of his shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, hesitant in case he’s reading it wrong. Tubbo could be laughing, for all his addled senses can tell, but he deep down he knows. He can barely hear Tubbo’s reply.

“I’m worried something is going to happen to you.”

 _Something has already happened_ , he wants to yell. _You just missed it._

He knows, faintly, that it’s not Tubbo’s fault. Tubbo doesn’t know, because he’s never told him, but he wants someone to focus on him, for once. He wants someone to realize, without him telling them. He wants someone to pay attention.

Tubbo’s not that person. Tubbo has friends, and a nation or two, and a history that extends beyond ‘stay alive.’

He pulls away, gently, promises something or other about him being fine, and goes back to planning destruction.

* * *

Their plan doesn’t work. Tommy shows up only thirty seconds late, while the crater is still smoking.

Jack can’t help but feel like the universe is working against him.

Niki is fuming. She’s shaking in anger, standing at the edge of the crater and staring at it, and Jack goes to put his hand on her shoulder. She pulls away.

* * *

Niki comes to join him on the porch that night. He doesn’t know she’s there until she says,

“Why do you spend so much time out here?”

He doesn’t know how to explain that it’s comforting, being out in the cold, alone when he knows everyone is safe inside. He’s become a sentry almost accidentally, taking care of the only two people in the world he still cares about. He doesn’t know how to explain how comforting and devastating it is, and he doesn’t know how to explain that the cold calms him, so he just shrugs. She always understands him, anyways, or so he hopes.

She doesn’t stay outside for long.

* * *

He wonders, sometimes, if he’s doing something wrong. Tommy and Tubbo are still friends, somehow, even after everything. Jack doesn’t know how to ask if Tommy's ever apologized. Tubbo’s always had a heart too painfully big, so he kind of doubts it.

Tommy never apologized to him.

He watches Puffy and Niki get pulled apart, and cringes a bit more each time Niki comes home crying. He doesn’t know how to ask her if she still thinks they’re in the right.

  
He can tell she’s not sure either. Maybe none of them are.

* * *

Puffy approaches him one day. It’s her first time visiting Snowchester, and her white fur gleams in the sunlight reflecting off the snow. He’s at his usual post, and he gives her a half-hearted wave as he sees her.

She returns it, but her face is grim. She comes to stand beside him.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she says, quietly, and he has to strain to hear her. He pretends he didn’t all the same.

“Sorry. Hearing loss.”

She gives him a look, but raises her voice all the same. “Niki says it’s a bit more than that.”

He balks, stumbles back a few feet on the wood of the porch and almost his balance. Puffy reaches out and steadies him. “Pardon?”

“I’m sorry about what happened to you, Jack,” she starts. He can’t tell what emotions he’s feeling, but it’s overwhelming. He tries to think of something to say, but she continues before he can force the words out.

Her hand on his wrist twists, and he tries to pull it away when he realizes she’s searching for his pulse. She holds on, then her face tightens and she yanks him into a hug.

They’ve had hardly more than two conversations, but he feels safe in her embrace. He holds on tight, and she runs a hand through his short-shaven hair.

“I know you’re hurting,” she says, and he knows he’s made a mistake.

* * *

Jack finds Tommy back near L’Manburg. It took him a couple more weeks to even gather up the courage, but eventually he spoke to Niki.

He tries not to think about the conversation.

Tommy seems surprised to see him, but they settle at the edge of the crater.

Tommy looks better than the last time he saw him. He tries not to be jealous. They sit in silence for a few long seconds before he can force the words out.

“I think I owe you an apology,” he says. Tommy balks.

“What? I owe _you_ an apology,” he comes back with. “I fucking killed you!”

“I tried to kill you too,” he starts, but Tommy cuts him off.

“It was kinda deserved. Can we just agree not to anymore?” He sticks out his hand.

Jack smiles.

Snowchester seems warmer, that night.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> here's my [ ko-fi ](https://yaoyoyoyo.tumblr.com/post/623129308189327360/i-just-finished-setting-up-a-ko-fi-please-check)!  
> here's my [ information on writing commissions ](https://yaoyoyoyo.tumblr.com/post/631112745941712896/hello-ive-finally-decided-to-officially-open)!  
> here's my [ tumblr ](https://anyaskers.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> let me know if any of the links break, and i'll do my best to fix them!  
> please leave some comments, and i'm always, always open to constructive criticism :).


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